The giant and the bird
by Little.Latina
Summary: She was sick. And he was worried sick about her.
1. Chapter 1

She looked sad, and fragile, and sick. And thinner. She was so much thinner. She wasn't eating well- she hadn't been for some time. How much weight had she lost in just a couple of months? Fifteen pounds? Twenty pounds? She barely touched the mug of tea he had waiting for her at her desk every morning, let alone the crackers and salads he regularly bought for her and that ended in the trash can. He was scared he would soon have to start force feeding her or she'd disappear. (Maybe that was what she wanted. That one was a thought that terrified him)

She looked paler than usual and had dark circles under her eyes. She was suffering from sleep deprivation, he could tell. Lack of propper rest made her irritable and moody. He wanted nothing more than to cheer her up. He tried all the ways he knew. None of them seemed to work.

He knew she was sick because she was unhappy. (He hated that fact almost as much as he hated _him_ for making her unhappy. It never occured to him that he could hate anyone or anything more than he hated _him,_ but it was obvious now that he could).

He wish there was something he could do to make her all better. He was running out of ideas. They were both running out of time. He felt powerless, and useless, and frustrated. He was losing his appetite, he had trouble sleeping, he was restless, and moody, and irritable. He looked as sad as she did.

She was sick. And he was worried sick about her.


	2. Chapter 2

Robin left their bedroom and headed to the couch around ten past eleven but fell asleep a quarter past five in the morning, two hours before her alarm was set to go off. They had eaten dinner in complete silence and while she was doing the dishes another row had followed. Something about the Land Rover's tires and a new microwave and money being too tight. She didn't care. She only half listened to what he was saying about her earning less than the woman that cleaned the office where he worked. He liked the sound of his own voice so much, she'd let him talk all he wanted. She was too tired to fight back. It wasn't worth it.

She wasn't feeling much like herself lately. She dreaded going to work but it was nothing compared to how much she dreaded calling in sick and staying home– that would only worsen Strike's worried state of mind and the last thing she needed was for her boss to drop by to check on her. Robin found that she hated the first of her dreads more than the latter– work used to be her safe place, where she could take her mind off the growing problems of her dying relationship and get some sense of satisfaction every time she followed a lead or investigated a clue that would ultimately help solve the case. But now she had lost that safe place, too, just like she was slowly losing herself. It was bad enough that he had completely forgotten about their unspoken rule of being strictly professional with each other by making her breakfast every morning and buying her lunch almost every day, casting mortified looks her way every time she disposed of her untouched food in the trash can, trying not to show how much it sickened him that she looked thinner and paler with each passing week.

It was heavily raining when she got off the tube. She looked for the small sized black umbrella she always carried in her purse. It wasn't there. _Shit_. Matthew must have taken it. He had been watching the ten o'clock news before their argument had started the night before while Robin had been in the kitchen, he must have heard the weather report and searched her purse for the umbrella that morning when she was in the shower after he couldn't find his. He often did this– he always misplaced his.

She felt tears of frustration coming out of her eyes. She usually didn't mind when he did things like this, and he did them because he was used to her not minding. _But that was before_ she thought. _Before what?_ , she asked herself in a voice that sounded a lot like that of her mother's. _That was before you started working for Strike. He changed you. He made you realize your worth. He made you see you deserve better_.

By the time Robin reached Denmark Street she was drenched to the skin. She would have to go to the bathroom and change into the spare clothes she kept in the drawer before she did anything else. She had a bag with black leggings and a cream colored sweater she sometimes wore when she did surveillance for a college student whose parents suspected of dating a married professor that was twenty years her senior, if she remembered well. It was fifteen to nine. Strike wouldn't be in yet– he was probably still in his apartment upstairs, getting ready for the day. She had some time to make herself presentable before he showed up for work.

Robin took a deep breath and fished through the contents of her purse for the key to the office. _Shit_ , she breathed to herself in anger for the second time that morning. She couldn't find it. It wasn't there. She had heard a metallic sound earlier when she had taken out her wallet to pay for the subway pass– she didn't pay attention to it. Maybe she should have checked what it was that fell when she took the wallet out of the purse. Maybe it hadn't been a coin like she had thought –maybe it had been the key. She didn't have a keychain for it. Strike had given her a cute, little one in the shape of an owl, but Matthew hadn't liked it so Robin hung it from a nail out on the wall in the office kitchen, where they kept it as an ornament. Strike never once asked about it.

 _Shit_ , she said again between gritted teeth. She had lost the key. She would have to go upstairs and knock on Strike's door looking like the devil and ask him to go open the door for her so she could change into dry clothes and start the working day.

 _Shit_.


End file.
